Notre Dame Bishop Gibbons, Saratoga Central Catholic and Catholic Central High School have applied to merge for the 2014 varsity football season said Saratoga Catholic athletic director Phonsey Lambert.

The Section II football committee has not made any official ruling on the application but the New York State Public High School Association recently approved three-way football mergers, Lambert said.

According to the bylaws of Section II, schools must submit paperwork to be approved by their Boards of Education first and then put forth a request to the section’s merger committee, which would then make the final decision.

“I believe the deadline for the merger decision is May 1st,” Section II football chairman Gary Vanderzee said. “They submit their application to the merger committee and then it could get approved. Then we would classify them according to their numbers.”

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With Bishop Gibbons, located in Schenectady, and Saratoga Catholic combining teams for the first time in 2013, the schools still had only 20-23 varsity players on a 1-6 Class D team.

“If we got a kid that really wants to play it gives him an opportunity,” Lambert said of the proposed team. “There will be a sacrifice going down to Gibbons to practice but last year it seemed to work. It was a nice fit.”

Catholic Central, located in Troy, had about 25 varsity players last season and went 0-5 in Class C, before forfeiting its final two games of the regular season and not competing in the Section II playoffs.

CCHS administrators declined to comment on any potential football merger at this time.

The combined team would likely play a Class C schedule, which was taken into consideration when the decision to merge was made, Lambert said.

“I just think having the three teams gives us strength by numbers,” Lambert said. “Without this merger I don’t think we could have a program.”

As of right now, the proposed team would be coached by John Barber, who helmed the Sainted Knights last fall. Barber has been part of meetings between school officials and athletic directors since the idea was first proposed in December.

“They had the idea to get things started and talking about it,” Barber said. “Once that was approved we started finalizing everything as far as where our home base is going to be and what we’re going to be called and all that. We had a meeting last week with the athletic directors to go through all of that stuff.”

According to Barber, the tri-school team would be based at Bishop Gibbons with practices being held there daily and captains from all three schools helping to keep everything in order.

“We have our field house there (at Gibbons) for the team,” Barber said. “There’s the office there, a training room and a weight room. The kids are going to have their own lockers and everything right there. Now with technology and communication and everything though, at least personally, I’m able to stay in touch with the kids every day.”

The proposed move is the latest in a long struggle to keep varsity football as an option for all three school’s student athletes.

Football returned to Saratoga Catholic at the modified level in 2007 and a varsity squad was fielded two years later. However, there was no team in 2010 and the 2011 squad was forced to forfeit the final three games of their schedule due to lack of numbers.

The proposed merger may be just the tip of the iceberg as dwindling football numbers have small schools looking at all options.

“I think it is,” Barber said of whether or not merging teams is the future of area football. “It’s to keep things going.”